The Life-Boat
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THE LIFE-BOAT THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION VOL. XXXVIII DECEMBER 1965 No. 414 CONTENTS NOTES OF THE QUARTER 459 DRAMATIC PICTURES 460 LIFE-BOATS AND ANARCHY 462 THE LIFE-BOAT ENTHUSIASTS* SOCIETY 463 NEW STEEL 70-FOOT LIFE-BOAT 464 OBITUARIES 468 NEW WAYS OF RAISING MONEY 469 BOOK REVIEWS 47O FOCUS ON ST. HELIER 473 BRONZE MEDALS PRESENTED IN IRELAND 478 HUGHIE GREEN'S AUTOGRAPH SESSION 478 RESCUE BY TWO BOYS 479 SAVED BY MOUTH-TO-MOUTH RESUSCITATION 479 NAMING CEREMONY AND CENTENARY 480 I R B LAUNCHES 482 GIRVAN CENTENARY 483 LIFE-BOAT SERVICES ROUND THE COASTS 484 INSHORE RESCUE BOATS ON SERVICE 511 ROYAL HUMANE SOCIETY TESTIMONIAL 520 SUNDERLAND TRAGEDY 520 42, Grosvenor Gardens, London S.W.1. Advertising enquiries should be addressed to CHEIRON PRESS LTD. 3 CORK STREET, LONDON W.1. (REGENT 5301) 457 Portrait of a Coxswain COXSWAIN LIONEL DEREK SCOTT has been coxswain of The Mumbles life-boat since May 1955, when he became one of the youngest coxswains in the service of the RNLI. He had joined the crew in 1947. H; received the Institution's silver medal in 1963. Since he was appointed a boat's officer in 1950 The Mumbles life-boat has made 89 service launches and 48 lives have been rescued. 458 pll | MESSAGE FROM TIME CHAIRMAN • Towards the close of a year in which greater demands were made on the 1 life-boat service than ever before, I would like to congratulate everyone I connected with the service on their splendid achievements and to wish them • all a very happy Christmas and success in all their efforts in 1966. 1 V. M. WYNDHAM-QUIN, CAPT., R.N. NOTES OF THE QUARTER Figures already available show that 1965 was a year of outstanding achieve- ment for the life-boat service. In 1964 an all-time record for launches by rescue craft of the RNLI was established. In that year life-boats were launched 929 times and inshore rescue boats 238 times. This total figure of 1,167 launches had already been passed in 1965 by the end of September. The summer of 1965 was a particularly busy one. From May to August, inclusive, life-boats were launched on service 453 times and inshore rescue boats 333 times. Life- boats saved 287 people and inshore rescue boats 151 people. In no other summer in the past were so many calls made on the Institution's rescue craft. WINTER IRB STATIONS The value of the Institution's inshore rescue boats has been proved con- clusively in the summer months, and it has been decided to keep twenty IRB's in service during the winter of 1965-66. The stations which have been chosen are those which afford reasonable launching conditions in relatively severe weather. Twelve of the stations which are remaining operational are in England, five in Wales and three in Scotland. The English stations are: Blyth, Eastney, Gorleston, Lymington, Mudeford, North Sunderland, Poole, Redcar, Skegness, Tynemouth, Wells (Norfolk), and Yarmouth (Isle of Wight). The Welsh stations are: Aberdovey, Aberystwyth, Atlantic College (Glamorgan), Llandudno, and Pwllheli. The Scottish stations are: Droughty Ferry, Helensburgh, and Kinghorn. CONTRACT FOR LOWESTOFT FIRM The contract for building the first six of the Institution's 44-foot steel life- boats has been won by a Lowestoft firm of boatbuilders, Messrs. Brooke Marine Ltd. The total cost of the new boats will be £158,700. The earliest date at which the first boat can be completed will be thirty-six weeks after the placing of the orders. Completion of the others is expected to follow at four- weekly intervals. The new life-boats are built to the basic design of the 44-foot 459 steel life-boat which the Institution obtained from the United States Coast Guard. A full description of this boat appeared in the June 1964 number of The Life-boat. SCOTTISH STATION CLOSED The life-boat station at Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, was closed on 3oth September. The life-boat had not been called out on service for nearly four years, and it is more than eight years since a life-saving service was carried out by the Newburgh boat. The life-boat was a small 32-foot surf boat. A life-boat station was established at Newburgh as early as 1828. Earlier records are incomplete, but the station appears to have been closed down for a number of years. It was re-opened by the Institution in 1877, and since that date Newburgh life-boats have had a fine record and saved no fewer than 155 lives, but with changed conditions there is no evident need for a life-boat today. RESCUE BY HOVERCRAFT On 5th August, a young girl was rescued by the hovercraft operating between Ryde and Gosport. This appears to have been the first rescue carried out at sea by a hovercraft off the coast of this country. There is a certain division of opinion over the question whether a hovercraft should be regarded as a ship or an aircraft. The view taken by the Institution is that the hovercraft is essenti- ally a marine craft, and future rescues by hovercraft can be regarded as coming within the same category as rescues by shore boats. On I7th September, 1962, the Rhyl life-boat carried out a remarkable rescue from a hovercraft which had broken adrift from her moorings, a service for which the Coxswain, Harold Campini, was awarded the silver medal. Dramatic Pictures Really good photographs of life-boats at sea in rough weather are almost impossible to come by. Photographs of actual rescue operations are almost as rare. This is an understandable state of affairs, for the life-boat is, by the nature of her work, at sea when other boats seek harbour. However, when storms and rescue work in bad light or at night are put aside, there must be many opportun- ities of photographing life-boats being launched, or on exercises. These could produce excellent pictures, but it is very rarely indeed that we see one. Dutch photographers seem somehow more succesful. The two photographs reproduced here of Dutch life-boats at sea are certainly dramatic studies and may provide inspiration for British photographers. If readers have any really dramatic pictures of life-boats at sea, or of slipway launches, the RNLI would be glad to have copies for their photographic library. Any photographs of rescues by breeches buoy would also be welcome as we are constantly being asked for a photograph of such a rescue, but have nothing on our files. 460 By courtesy of] [Cees van der Meulen, Heemstede A Dutch life-boat at sea. r By courtesy of] [Pirn W. Korver, Rotterdam A Dutch life-boat in rough seas. 461 LIFE-BOATS AND ANARCHY THE association between the RNLI and Russian anarchists may appear to be an unlikely one. Nevertheless, perhaps the greatest of the Russian anarchists, Prince Peter Kropotkin, was a profound admirer of the life-boat service in this country. Kropotkin's most famous work was Mutual Aid, which he wrote in England. He first developed his theory of mutual aid from observations which he made during journeys in Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria. There he encountered many examples of mutual aid among animals, and this led him to become a severe critic of the current popularization of the theories of Darwin. In particular, he believed that the idea of a perpetual battle for survival gave a very misleading picture of the truth of evolution. MUTUAL AID In developing his theory he cited numerous examples of mutual aid among both primitive and civilized peoples, and more than once he called attention to the form in which the RNLI was organized. In Mutual Aid he wrote: "The Life-boat Association in this country, and similar institutions on the Continent, must be mentioned in the first place. The former has now over three hundred boats along the coasts of these isles, and it would have twice as many were it not for the poverty of the fishermen, who cannot afford to buy life-boats. The crews consist, however, of volunteers, whose readiness to sacrifice their lives for the rescue of absolute strangers to them is put every year to a severe test; every winter the loss of several of the bravest among them stands on record. And if we ask these men what moves them to risk their lives, even when there is no reasonable chance of success, their answer is something on the following lines. A fearful snowstorm, blowing across the Channel, raged on the flat, sandy coast of a liny village hi Kent, and a small smack, laden with oranges, stranded on the sands near by. In these shallow waters only a fiat-bottomed life-boat of a simplified type can be kept, and to launch it during such a storm was to face an almost certain disaster. And yet the men went out, fought for hours against the wind, and the boat capsized twice. One man was drowned, the others were cast ashore. One of these last, a refined coastguard, was found next morning, badly bruised and half frozen in the snow. I asked him, how they came to make that desperate attempt ? 'I don't know myself,' was his reply. 'There was the wreck; all the people from the village stood on the beach, and all said it would be foolish to go out; we never should work through the surf. We saw five or six men cling- ing to the mast, making desperate signals. We all felt that something must be done, but what could we do ? One hour passed, two hours, and we all stood there.